'Open Source Royalty and Mad Kings' (hey.com) 88
WordPress.org has seized control of WP Engine's Advanced Custom Fields plugin, renaming it "Secure Custom Fields" and removing commercial elements, according to WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg. The move, justified by alleged security concerns and linked to ongoing litigation between WP Engine and Automattic, marks an unprecedented forcible takeover in the WordPress ecosystem.
David Heinemeier Hansson, creator of Ruby on Rails and co-founder and chief technology officer of Basecamp-maker 37signals, opines on the situation: For a dispute that started with a claim of "trademark confusion", there's an incredible irony in the fact that Automattic is now hijacking users looking for ACF onto their own plugin. And providing as rational for this unprecedented breach of open source norms that ACF needs maintenance, and since WPE is no longer able to provide that (given that they were blocked!), Automattic has to step in to do so. I mean, what?!
Imagine this happening on npm? Imagine Meta getting into a legal dispute with Microsoft (the owners of GitHub, who in turn own npm), and Microsoft responding by directing GitHub to ban all Meta employees from accessing their repositories. And then Microsoft just takes over the official React repository, pointing it to their own Super React fork. This is the kind of crazy we're talking about.
Weaponizing open source code registries is something we simply cannot allow to form precedence. They must remain neutral territory. Little Switzerlands in a world of constant commercial skirmishes.
And that's really the main reason I care to comment on this whole sordid ordeal. If this fight was just one between two billion-dollar companies, as Automattic and WPE both are, I would not have cared to wade in. But the principles at stake extend far beyond the two of them.
Using an open source project like WordPress as leverage in this contract dispute, and weaponizing its plugin registry, is an endangerment of an open source peace that has reigned decades, with peace-time dividends for all. Not since the SCO-Linux nonsense of the early 2000s have we faced such a potential explosion in fear, doubt, and uncertainty in the open source realm on basic matters everyone thought they could take for granted.
David Heinemeier Hansson, creator of Ruby on Rails and co-founder and chief technology officer of Basecamp-maker 37signals, opines on the situation: For a dispute that started with a claim of "trademark confusion", there's an incredible irony in the fact that Automattic is now hijacking users looking for ACF onto their own plugin. And providing as rational for this unprecedented breach of open source norms that ACF needs maintenance, and since WPE is no longer able to provide that (given that they were blocked!), Automattic has to step in to do so. I mean, what?!
Imagine this happening on npm? Imagine Meta getting into a legal dispute with Microsoft (the owners of GitHub, who in turn own npm), and Microsoft responding by directing GitHub to ban all Meta employees from accessing their repositories. And then Microsoft just takes over the official React repository, pointing it to their own Super React fork. This is the kind of crazy we're talking about.
Weaponizing open source code registries is something we simply cannot allow to form precedence. They must remain neutral territory. Little Switzerlands in a world of constant commercial skirmishes.
And that's really the main reason I care to comment on this whole sordid ordeal. If this fight was just one between two billion-dollar companies, as Automattic and WPE both are, I would not have cared to wade in. But the principles at stake extend far beyond the two of them.
Using an open source project like WordPress as leverage in this contract dispute, and weaponizing its plugin registry, is an endangerment of an open source peace that has reigned decades, with peace-time dividends for all. Not since the SCO-Linux nonsense of the early 2000s have we faced such a potential explosion in fear, doubt, and uncertainty in the open source realm on basic matters everyone thought they could take for granted.
Want to kill the most popular web framework, Matt? (Score:4, Interesting)
Is it your goal to destroy the most popular web publishing framework in the world, Mr. Mullenweg? Because this is pretty much exactly how you would do that.
I'm beginning to think maybe the guy is going through some as yet undiagnosed mental health crisis.
Re:Want to kill the most popular web framework, Ma (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, the anguish of someone else having money that could be his.
Re: (Score:1, Troll)
Well, the thing with Open Source is that it cuts both ways. You can ignore the people who produce the foundation of your wealth, but they are not beholden to you and can change that foundation with no regard for your needs or even actively in opposition to your needs, especially if your contributions are non-existent. Not taking endless shit from corporations is not a sign of mental illness and insinuating mental illness in others without a hint of proof is a despicable dick move.
Re:Want to kill the most popular web framework, Ma (Score:4, Insightful)
If I had been on Wordpress I would have been thinking about an exit strategy. You never know what's coming next when things like this happens.
Re:Want to kill the most popular web framework, Ma (Score:4, Insightful)
Stop using Wordpress for serious sites. Please. Also, don't use Perl, Python, or Node either. These have all the same pitfalls of PHP. Build a website core without a scripting language being the core dependency. Build the HTML, CSS, Javascript to use javascript webworker/drivers against your data and stop letting Wordpress keep working like it's 1999.
You always need *something* running in backend server if your website will store and display visitor-generated content, for example any sort of comments to your blog posts. Not to mention websites that handle their own user login credentials. A static web server isn't going to work. "Javascript webworker/drivers" isn't going to bypass such necessity.
Re: Want to kill the most popular web framework, M (Score:2)
Yeah, was gonna say the same thing. You can push a LOT (if not most) of your app logic onto the client if that's your bag, but you will need SOMETHING on the server side to handle data persistence, assuming that the data in question isn't capable of being fully contained by the client or if that isn't desirable.
Re: Want to kill the most popular web framework, M (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem you have with PHP barely exists, because they maintain old versions for a reasonable period. As such you have the option to run the old thing while your framework is updated.
Drupal solves what little of this problem there is by using a smaller framework (Symphony) which handles that part.
Nobody should be trying to do it all themselves today, it's too complicated. But that seems to be what you are advocating for...
Re: (Score:2)
The problem you have with PHP barely exists, because they maintain old versions for a reasonable period.
Not only that, but most people who have to run servers for a living rely on enterprise Linux distributions - which themselves keep PHP (and pretty much everything else) patched up until the distro's EOL.
Re: (Score:2)
Stop using Wordpress for serious sites. Please. Also, don't use Perl, Python, or Node either.
The irony of this comment being posted on Slashdot is amazing.
What do you mean build? (Score:2)
Stop using Wordpress for serious sites. Please. Also, don't use Perl, Python, or Node either. These have all the same pitfalls of PHP. Build a website core without a scripting language being the core dependency. Build the HTML, CSS, Javascript to use javascript webworker/drivers against your data and stop letting Wordpress keep working like it's 1999.
Build a website core? Scripting languges? And what's a snake jewellery got to do with it? Does a webworker in HTML work with a point and click interface? If not, you've just lost 99% of your target audience.
People capable of doing the things you suggest are doing them. Wordpress is for the rest of the population.
Re: (Score:2)
As a programmer I have never really enjoyed WordPress and sometimes (to put it mildly) had a bit of an aversion to it. In situations where I had certain specific goals, I often felt it wasn't the right tool for the job.
But one thing to keep in mind about WordPress is that it can be operated by a capable swath of "the rest of the population," without a lot of help/supervision.
Re: (Score:2)
But one thing to keep in mind about WordPress is that it can be operated by a capable swath of "the rest of the population," without a lot of help/supervision.
I like that you didn't say whether it being capable of being operated this was is good or bad, yet we all know what you mean.
Drupal recipes (Score:2)
But one thing to keep in mind about WordPress is that it can be operated by a capable swath of "the rest of the population," without a lot of help/supervision.
The Drupal community recognizes this. In fact this year they've undertaken a major initiative, now known as 'Drupal CMS', which is an out-of-the box menu of functionalities that can be applied to any Drupal website.
The reason Wordpress has been so largely successful is because for most people it is relatively easy to develop a website they're happy with, from start to finish. Realizing this after 20 years of its open-source evolution, the Drupal community has been developing 'recipes' [kanopi.com].
Re: Want to kill the most popular web framework, M (Score:1)
Re: Want to kill the most popular web framework, M (Score:3)
Yup, my first thought was, "Welp, either the community is going to fork WordPress entirely and leave Automattic and WP Engine to rot, or everyone smart will move on to a totally different framework... amd leave Automattic and WP Engine to rot."
How to kill a framework indeed
Re: Want to kill the most popular web framework, M (Score:2)
Open Source is not the same as Free Software (Score:2, Insightful)
Even if the discussion was Free Software should never have a price, there comes a point when you've profited too much
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Wow you really know how Free Enterprise works, or is that Open Enterprise? It's so confusing! At least we know that there is such as thing as "profiting too much", thanks for that insight.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
And yet, a multitude of people on here and elsewhere gladly steal whatever software, music, or movies they can using every justification imaginable.
Do you honestly see no difference between pirating for-sale items and stealing an open-source project? No difference at all?
Re: (Score:3)
And yet, a multitude of people on here and elsewhere gladly steal whatever software, music, or movies they can using every justification imaginable.
Do you honestly see no difference between pirating for-sale items and stealing an open-source project? No difference at all?
How can you steal something if it's free?
Re: (Score:3)
How can you steal something if it's free?
If you steal your lover's heart, is that free?
Re: (Score:2)
Regarding your downloading example, if the Ice Cream shop downloads Iron Man for a screening, or a college documentary, who cares, even if the entire town c
Re: (Score:2)
You should not, however, make it a retroactive law punishable by seizing someone else's business and codebase.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
We've been over this a million times on this site: a copyright violation, which doesn't even apply to this case, is not the same as stealing. Which is worse: someone stealing your only car or someone make a replica of your only car?
I agree, but the way Mr. Mu
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Taking an Open-Source project, profiting massively and not contributing is the same moral and ethical violation as stealing.
Let's translate that:
You: "Hey, here, have this thing!"
Me: "Oh, thanks, I can use this!"
You: "You fucking thief."
This is an unhinged opinion.
Re: (Score:2)
but there comes a point when you're abusing the philosophy, harming the philosophy.
. When you're big enough that you have no excuse for not contributing or compensating, that's when it's stealing.
Re:Open Source is not the same as Free Software (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not what I said, or even implied.
It's exactly what you implied. Open source is open source. The fact that someone makes money of it at some arbitrary profit number doesn't suddenly make using Open Source software stealing.
If you don't want people to use your code, don't publish the code with a license that permits them to. It really is that simple. Forgive me for not giving a flying fuck about your opinion that it arbitrarily becomes stealing at a certain profit.
Re: (Score:2)
fuck
you need to use more words then "fuck", you can't expect anyone to follow your point when you only use the word "fuck".
Of course you didn't say that, and I intentionally misquoted you, so I did not imply what you claimed, you misquoted me.
Taking an Open-Source project, profiting massively and not contributing is the same moral and ethical violation as stealing
vs
Taking an Open-Source project, profiting massively and not contributing is the same moral and ethical violation as stealing. I'm pro-Open-Source and pro-Free Software, but there comes a point when you're abusing the philosophy, harming the philosophy.
are very different statements.
Re: (Score:2)
Except you intentionally misquoted me
No I didn't. You even doubled down in multiple other posts saying that the act of not contributing back to the project is unethical and similar to stealing. If that's not the point you're making then you should stop making that point.
You've also made multiple points about carving out exceptions for arbitrarily small / profitless examples of using open source code.
Your point is stupid. You're not being misquoted, you're being criticised.
Re: (Score:2)
1. There's no legal requirement to compensate.
2. It's a moral / ethical violation to not compensate.
3. Only companies driving serious profit should compensate.
That's it, those are the points, in one paraphrased way or another, I keep brining up. In fact, we see this kind of exchange in other projects like the Linux Kernel. Microsoft, IBM, Red Hat, Oracle, and others contribute to the Kernel, without having a legal req
Re: (Score:2)
That's not what I said, or even implied.
Your stated that making "too much" money off of something that was freely given to you without giving something back to the entity who gave it to you was "the same moral and ethical violation as stealing." Once you give something away (without strings) you've given it away, period, full stop, so, yes, my characterization of your statement is absolutely accurate.
By the way, you accused the guy who responded to you below of "intentionally misquoting you" so I assume you really meant that comment for me, sinc
Re: (Score:2)
The second part does change it, I've maintained the entire time this is not a legal issue, it's a moral and ethical issue. If you don't have both sections, it really does change the entirety of what I said. I'll continue to maintain that at some point a company using a product becomes too successful off that product, to warrant using it without contributing back.
The philosophy of Open-Source is that I gi
Re: (Score:2)
Taking an Open-Source project, profiting massively and not contributing is the same moral and ethical violation as stealing.
No, it's not, unless there is a violation of the license. You may be pro-Open Source/Free Software, but your understanding of their principles seems to be flawed.
If RMS learned that someone made millions off Emacs without contributing back, would he whine about theft? Hardly.
If the creators of GCC learned that someone made billions off their product without contributing back, would they whine about theft? Hardly.
If Linus learned that someone made billions off Linux without contributing back, would he whine
Re: (Score:2)
I'm pro-Open-Source and pro-Free Software, but there comes a point when you're abusing the philosophy, harming the philosophy.
You misquoted me, specially leaving out:
abusing the philosophy, harming the philosophy
. You're right, if RMS wasn't paid for EMACS he probably wouldn't care, but, if a company became extremely wealthy from it, they have a moral and ethical duty to give back. This is not a legal question, it's a moral and ethical question, of course the license doesn't say at point X you have to compensate the project, but it shouldn't have to. Taking Open-Source projects and never compensating is a form of stealing, just as if I took the entire sample bin of candy
Re: (Score:2)
You misquoted me, specially leaving out:
abusing the philosophy, harming the philosophy
That's because those things do not exist. Open Source far predates the OSI that told you those things existed, THEY DO NOT. Literally the whole reason we have the GPL is that THEY DO NOT. If they did, then RMS could have just used one of the existing OSS licenses because it would have done what he wanted, which THEY DO NOT.
You think you understand these issues, but YOU DO NOT.
If you want people to be forced to give back contributions, then put it in your license. But you will find that unless you offer some
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Open Source is not the same as Free Software (Score:5, Insightful)
I can assure you that Wordpress Foundation still owns Wordpress.
I'm not sure that's accurate, but even if it is it's not a crime.
I'm not sure what you're talking about. Maybe it has something to do with the trademark dispute, but I don't know how you're supposed to provide a hosting service dedicated for a specific platform without mentioning the name of that platform.
Where in the GPL does it mention anything about paying a "fair price"?
And I should have gotten a "thank you" wave when I went out of my way to make room for someone to enter my lane in traffic.
And I'm not necessarily siding with WPEngine on this. They have undoubtedly profited massively from the Wordpress project. But Matt Mullenweg appears to be going nuclear over something that didn't violate any laws. If he doesn't like the lack of contributions from corporations that use Wordpress, then change the damned license!
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Effectively, you made that money by stealing, not stealing in a legal sense, but stealing in terms of contributing effectively no work or compensation.
Software licenses only exist in a legal sense. They are in no other way real things. Every single one of them is powered by copyright, because without it, you would not have to obey them in order to make copies or derivative works.
Whether it is wrong to create a business off the back of an open source project and not return anything is another subject. If the terms of the license do not require it, then there is a strong argument to be made that this constitutes consent, but that is of course not the only a
Re: (Score:2)
Whether it is wrong to create a business off the back of an open source project and not return anything is another subject.
it is the entire subject. If you make near nothing, and you only needed project X for a component, have a pleasant day, but if you start becoming wealthy off someone else's work, you should be compensating. Maybe that compensation is having a few full-time developers working on the project, but you should do something.
Imagine if Linux had no compensation? It doesn't say if you use the Linux Kernel you must contribute, but people decided it was better to help, than just take. WordPress is at the level
Re: (Score:2)
it is the entire subject
No, that's the only part you're interested in, which is a very different thing. There are other matters at play here, and some of them involve rights which you are arguing against.
Imagine if Linux had no compensation? It doesn't say if you use the Linux Kernel you must contribute, but people decided it was better to help, than just take.
By number, and by far, most Linux users only ever take. They will never contribute any code back upstream, period. Not even a single line. Most of them will never even make a useful bug report. They are not in any sense contributing back to Linux, nor any other associated code.
People and corporations contribute back to Linux for a
Re: (Score:2)
1. It's not a legal issue.
2. It's a moral / ethical issue.
3. Only companies driving serious profit on the backs of others should be bound to compensate.
I'm not really sure how this is confusing. In fact, you even in a round about way pointed this out
By number, and by far, most Linux users only ever take. They will never contribute any code back upstream, period. Not even a single line. Most of them will never even make a useful bug report. They are not in any sense contributing back to Linux, nor any other associated code.
99% of users are not profiting from Linux, but companies like Microsoft, Red Hat, Oracle, IBM, and others are, and oddly enough they do contribute back to the proj
Re: (Score:2)
So, my Open Source champion, specify a fair amount this fellow and others should pay for using and open source p
Re: (Score:2)
What's a fair price? Well, how much benefit are you getting from the software? On a personal level, I give ~$300 / year to different projects which benefit me, via donation. Do I think everyone should do that? No, but I get a lot of use from projects like LibreOffice, Fedora, Gnome, Angular, and some others, so I throw them a donation. How much would it cost me to use MS Office, Windows, or other software? Do I pay the same fee I would have to pay to use those product
Re: (Score:2)
There's no point to this discussion because you're ignoring everything I keep bringing up.
I'm ignoring everything you keep bringing up because everything you keep bringing up is ignorant.
1. It's not a legal issue.
2. It's a moral / ethical issue.
It is ALWAYS a legal issue, because software licenses are always a legal issue, and when you don't use a license that requires that users contribute back to you, you have CHOSEN that license. Now they are mad that people are obeying the terms of the license THAT THEY CHOSE. But since THEY CHOSE THE LICENSE, their only remedy now is to CRY HARDER as you are doing.
99% of users are not profiting from Linux, but companies like Microsoft, Red Hat, Oracle, IBM, and others are, and oddly enough they do contribute back to the project to spite not having a legal requirement to do
WP Engine is doing everything they are obligated t
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Your claim is "it's wrong to accept offered terms".
This is professional victimhood.
Re: (Score:2)
1. It's not a legal issue. 2. It's a moral / ethical issue.
3. Only companies driving serious profit on the backs of others should be bound to compensate.
You decided to ignore point 1 and 2, and assert the opposite. If you have the opposite view, thats fine, but we obviously can't agree so, for the third time, have a good week.
Re: (Score:2)
Where in the GPL does it mention anything about paying a "fair price"?
Not to detract from your valid argument, but I noticed an oddity...
The GPL is all about paying a fair price. The price is that you must provide the source for any changes that you make to the software that you are distributing.
The rest of your argument appears to be very valid and the thrust of your argument is absolutely correct.
Re: (Score:2)
and another company effectively stole it, made billions, and felt entitled
They're providing website hosting, not selling copies of wordpress, the wordpress is free.
Re: Open Source is not the same as Free Software (Score:2)
"and another company effectively stole it"
Complete bullshit. When you give away your source code you cannot complain that someone stole what you gave away.
Re: (Score:2)
there comes a point when you've profited too much off something to maintain that free price. WPEngine should have absolutely paid Automatic, just as any large company that drives serious profit should kick back to the respective project, be that Angular, React, PHP, or even NPM.
That's the important part, when you're big enough that you have no excuse for contributing or compensating, that's when it's an issue.
Re: (Score:2)
That's the important part, when you're big enough that you have no excuse for contributing or compensating, that's when it's an issue.
They're working within the defined rules. It's not an issue.
The issue is that the rules are bad. Now they are being adjusted with hands of ham, which is causing new problems which are at least as bad as the situation already was.
Re: (Score:2)
It's almost as though becoming work-withable creates/enables an incentive to work with it.
Re: (Score:2)
hyperbole much? (Score:3)
I don't see the issue to be honest. Opensource was traditionally about the code being open, you know the SOURCE. Why that expanded to mean actively running services and handling distribute for hostile competitors, I am not clear on.
Repositories and shared ecosystems are nice and I am not against them but this hardly the anti-FOSS act that saying changing the license of WP so that WPEngine can't use it etc would be.
I am not sure I see what is wrong or unreasonable with "you take take take, give nothing back, actively compete with me, so I am not hosting stuff for YOUR customers for free"
"Tivo-iszation" of course inserts another wrinkle into how this argument looks but that isnt happening here either. The WP source is just as useful as it ever was to someone who wants to deploy/use/sell-wp-as-a-service for the most part being expected to stand up their own infrastructure/repositories if they can't/won't stay on good terms while NOT DENYING them any of the key things needed to do that does not seem much of breach of the FOSS social contract.
Re: hyperbole much? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re-stating the issue: WP source is open. Automattic's repository, not so much. If WP Engine didn't want the rug pulled out from under it's popular plugin, they should have hosted it themselves.
Of course, that opens up a can of worms w.r.t. popular OS mirror sites inserting some Evil Code(tm) into its distributions. But we wnt through this with systemd and survived.
Re: hyperbole much? (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, Mullenweg has for many years pushed the concept of all plugins being primarily hosted on the main Wordpress domain - purportedly for user convenience and user trust reasons. What he didn't mention, though, is that doing so would also make it much easier for him to burn the house down.
Re: hyperbole much? (Score:3)
Right, he pushed this approach and now is altering the deal because he found out he didn't like how it was going. That's his prerogative but also won't win him any friends... Or business.
Re: (Score:2)
Automattic has forced everyone through their portal and then punished successful businesses for using their portal.
Re: (Score:3)
Nicely stated. In a lot of ways it is the same problem of if your code depends on someone else's FOSS project you really better have some control of the coupling and some notions of what you might replace those dependencies with if they go away or a plan to maintain that code on your own if need be. - if its something critical anyway.
Like what was WPEngine's plan here if the WordPress project decided to stop all PHP development and rewrite the entire CMS in Python or something. Just abandon all their cur
Re: hyperbole much? (Score:2)
Until a couple weeks ago Mullenweg claimed that wordpress.org was part of the WordPress Foundation and existed independent of Automattic to prevent this clear conflict of interest.
In business, gaining customers and trust by publicly lying about your product is called fraud.
Re: hyperbole much? (Score:2)
It seems to me that everyone who shows any sympathy for Mullenweg also confuses Automattic, the for profit company, with the WordPress Foundation, a nonprofit.
When the WordPress Foundation filed as a nonprofit with the IRS they stated that their mission was to provide WordPress, plugins, and themes to everyone for free. This is not an issue of software license, it is an issue of a nonprofit being used as a cudgel to harm competitors of Automattic.
Mullenweg was not demanding mere contributions, which WP Engi
Re: (Score:2)
I remember from the initial article Mullenweg saying WP Engine contribution is minimal, equivalent to the work of a single person.
Re: hyperbole much? (Score:2)
He is also demanding 8 percent of their gross revenue, so I would not exactly take his word for it.
The Advanced Custom Fields plugin that WPEngine develops allows many developers to make dynamic sites for customers. Without it, those would probably be Drupal customers.
Also, tons of WPEngine hosting customers use WooCommerce, and all of its associated plugins pay Automattic. Mullenweg just does not understand that what is good for the goose is good for the gander.
If Slashdot ran an open-source soap opera... (Score:3)
If Slashdot ran a serialized, open-source soap opera [wikipedia.org], (that has nothing to do with Richard M. Stallman [slashdot.org]), then this is it.
I was hoping the details of Musk running Twitter into the ground would take off as a long running series, but as a Drupal developer musing in the slashdots, I'll settle for Wordpress billionaire chaos.
Re: (Score:2)
Are you sure that SCO is dead?
We were just getting ready to switch to wordpress (Score:2)
Re: We were just getting ready to switch to wordpr (Score:4, Informative)
So run Drupal, the most popular CMS for government websites in the world. They mostly chose it over WordPress for very sensible reasons, some of which are technical and some of which have to do with the much healthier community.
FOSS is TRUE Open Source (Score:2)
I am not a lawyer and this is my opinion, based on facts, but it's not legal advice.
Free and Open Soure Software is awesome. It bring us Linux, Apache, MySQL (Maria!!), and PHP - LAMP.
Fake open source is people like Winamp, Automattic, etc. who let us view their source code but that's about it. Sure, you can fork some of these multi-billion dollar projects but still have further restrictions.
Wordpress is the highest popular framework for developing websites and it's the LEAST SECURE PIECE OF SHIT SOFTWAR
Seized control? (Score:3)
Okay I guess forking code is seizing control now. The only thing worse than stupid children throwing tantrums in the open source space, is the hyperbole posted about it.
Re: Seized control? (Score:2)
Think of it like this: if you dowloaded an app from the Play store and all of a sudden on the next update, Google replaced the app with their fork.
Re: (Score:2)
Think of it like this: if you dowloaded an app from the Play store and all of a sudden on the next update, Google replaced the app with their fork.
That is in no way analogous to what we are actually talking about.
The code to Wordpress was given away under the GPLv2, with the "or later" clause. The hand-wringing is about someone making money by selling services based around that code, and doing it in part by using the official repository for addons for that code. That official repository is something that was heavily promoted by the same person giving away the code, and now they are changing the terms of use of that repo because someone is making money
Re: Seized control? (Score:3)
WordPress literally took over the Advanced Custom Fields plugin in the repo and replaced it with their fork. That is the part of the story the OP and my post was referring to.
It is not like they just forked ACF. They are pushing their fork as an update to existing ACF users, many of whom have automatic updates applied or are not following this drama close enough to know that when they update their plugin is being replaced by a fork.
Re: (Score:2)
Ah, yes. Sorry, I should have read the parents there to see what aspect was being discussed, mea culpa.
Re: (Score:2)
Not the full story. ACF updates were withdrawn by WP Engine just shy of 3 weeks ago, and they announced going forward that all ACF users will need to get their updates from their website. They also automatically migrated this for all WP Engine customers.
This leaves everyone not a customer of WP Engine using ACF in an unsupported security nightmare state. So Automattic forked ACF, called it SCF, and published it in their repo. In the process they also fixed a security issue that WP Engine left non WP Engine
Re: (Score:2)
Nothing was seized. One company took their bat and ball and went home, while the other decided to substitute them with another team so the game can continue.
Well, my comment was still off base. But it sounds like Automatic is doing exactly what WP Engine is doing, so I'm OK with it on the same basis.
Re: (Score:2)
You're being disingenuous. The team behind ACF literally announced at the start of this entire debacle that they removed update support from ACF from the repo and that all updates will be handled through WP Engine's website. This exposes a huge security risk, so Automattic proceeded to fork the code and change the name in the repo to prevent users not paying attention getting screwed.
No control was seized. ACF is still available to all controlled by the original developers. A fork of it is now available in
nothing wrong (Score:2)
I still see nothing wrong from Automatic: Advanced Custom Fields is a WordPress plugin released under an Open Source license, Automatic have all the rights in the world to fork that plugin, providing they abide to to license. Also, they have all the rights in the world to provide a plugin with new code but equivalent functionality.
And even if they won't host ACF on their own repository (they aren't forced to carry all the existing plugins), users can install whatever plugins they want, as users already do w